Almost the end of the road ... and an admission

A trip with a purpose
I've just finished the first draft of a novel.  It's not precisely about music, but music threads through it. 
I always used to think it a little affected that novelists would say that the characters of a story take it over and tell their own story, but that really is how it happens.  And, at least for me, the characters can't live in a world that I don't understand.  Thus, the trip down the blues highway.
My main character, Joe Mayfield, is drawn to travel the same roads I have just passed over.   He has lost his wife, Cynthia, to cancer.  She loved blues and jazz, and they had always promised each other that they would take some time to follow the blues highway. Now Joe's making the journey alone.  He comes to New Orleans to a little B&B called L'home Joli.  Yesterday, I got a chance to walk the neighborhoods Joe would have been in, and I found a couple of places that are key to the story.
On the Internet, L’home Joli looked just right for Joe’s purpose.  Nine rooms, near the Quarter, but not so near as to be too expensive.  Hard up beside the Storyville district, where so much of the music Cynthia loved came from. Pretty picture of gables, wrought iron, bougainvillea.  However, the Internet had not captured it chief asset, which is its owner, Francine Bilodeau.  Everyone calls her Billie.
“Y’all stayin’ a while?” she said to Joe as he signed the register.
Joe smiled. “Well, a week at least.  Depends on the music.”
“Y’all goin’ to be stayin’ the summer at least if you’re usin’ that measure.” 
Billie is big, amply supplied with all the external aspects that bespeak womanhood.  Some would say oversupplied, but Joe understands from Billie’s confident stance that she would not put much value in such opinions.  She is quite possibly on the far side of 50, hard to tell.  She is, by the precise but never discussed racial accountancy of New Orleans, an octoroon.  She’s wearing a maroon shift with splashes of bright color that almost seem as they’re laughing at you.  Cynthia would have loved it.

L'Home Joli

Here's the house that I think will become L'Home Joli.  Right near Rampart, and truly hard up against Storyville.
In the story, which takes place in 2049 and 2050, Joe is being chased by ... well, it's complicated, and I hope you'll be able to read the story in the future.  Travel by car is less popular than today, one reason that Joe decides to evade his pursuers traveling by car.  Billie gives him instructions to go see her friend Big Al to find a vehicle.
He walks down to Rampart and turns toward Frenchmen Street, following Billie's directions.  He passes a large used car lot, then a smaller one, finally Big Al's … Everyone rides at Big Al’s.  It looks deserted.  He passes it by slowly, checking out the merchandise.  Surely, this must be the place.  But it doesn’t look open.  He walks a half block beyond the lot, trying to decide what to do next.
When he turns back, there is a very large black man leaning on the hood of a '41 Vanola at the front of the lot, sizing Joe up. 
Big Al, and there can be no doubt that this is indeed Big Al, is an imposing figure who carries 270 pounds easily on a six-foot-four frame.  Large features, big hands.  Smile punctuated by a toothpick. One of those rare human beings who can look friendly and terrifying at the same time. 
"Y'all in the market for a fine automobile, son?" 

"Everyone Rides at Big Al's"

And right in the place it would be in the story was my used car place, looking a little tidier than I envisioned, but correctly placed.   Is that luck or serendipity?

The story I'm writing ends in the Panacea, FL, and I'll write one more blog from Panacea before I quit.  Thank you for traveling with me.